Saturday, December 21, 2013

Paleo-Friendly Breakfast in Your Stockings on Christmas Morning

I am starting to collect our stocking stuffers for Christmas this year. My goal is to layer little toys and fun items with some breakfast-y items so that my husband and I can slowly sip our coffee while we all nibble on the beginnings of breakfast as the stockings' contents are being unwrapped. Lots of nonperishable paleo-friendly items are going to show up to 'sustain' us until the excitement ebbs a little and I can cook some heartier fare.

If you have Amazon Prime (free 2 day shipping) or not - but are willing to pay for 2 day shipping - today is the last stretch of time that you can order stocking stuffers and have them arrive before Christmas. Here is a sneak peek into our stockings' "breakfast-y" contents.
~

Are YOU slipping something to kick off breakfast into your family's stockings this year? What are you going to pick?



~
This post contains Amazon.com affiliate links. Shopping Amazon through this link results in a tiny percentage of the purchase price being given to Primal Kitchen, at no added cost to you, so thank you for supporting Primal Kitchen!

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Primal Kitchen Recipes Featured in the Paleo Cookbook for Dummies

I am exceptionally proud to have been a part of the creation of the Paleo Cookbook for Dummies.

Dr. Kellyann Petrucci was responsible for the book coming to life. In her words:

  • Includes an overview of the Paleo-diet shopping list and pantry-stocking tips, along with kid-friendly Paleo recipes.

    ~
  • Dozens of answers to such questions as “Should you eat dairy? Can you drink alcohol?” and more, along with diet testimonials.

    ~
  • Information on how the Paleo diet, which reverses disease naturally, improves autoimmune issues, skin challenges, sleep patterns and fitness levels. Shares how it boosts energy levels and helps celiacs who follow a gluten-free lifestyle/anti-inflammatory diet.

    ~

    With more than 100 Whole9 approved recipes (
    whole9life.com) and contributions from top Paleo lifestyle and food experts like Mark Sissson (MarksDailyApple.com), Melissa Joulwan (TheClothesMaketheGirl.com) Michelle Tam (NomNomPaleo), Arsy Vartanian (RubiesandRadishes.com), George Bryant (CivilizedCavemanCooking.com), Nick Massie (PaleoNick.com), Jason Crouch (PaleoPot.com), Audrey Olson (PrimalKitchen.Blogspot.com) and raw foodie, Alissa Cohen (AlissaCohen.com).    

You will find many Primal Kitchen recipe favorites in the kids' recipe section. I am very pleased that many of my contributed recipes qualified for the high standard of Dallas and Melissa Hartwig's Whole9 approval.

The Paleo Cookbook for Dummies is a beautifully done collaborative effort that offers lots of tips on paleo living. I happily recommend it to paleo newbies and longtimers alike!

Primal Kitchen Featured on the PaleoHacks Podcast

I had a blast recently as a guest with PaleoHacks podcast host Clark Danger on the PaleoHacks podcast. We covered a whole lot of ground in our time talking, but a consistent theme was the day to day business of keeping a paleo-leaning lifestyle chugging along in step with family life.



Monday, December 2, 2013

How to Set Up a "Drive-Thru" Paleo-Leaning Christmas Cookie Exchange

Hominahominahomina... :)
Yesterday, I tweeted:
...and this is true! It takes a lot of time and resources to come up with new recipes, especially analogs of popular holiday treats. Of course, I couldn't blog treats that I hadn't tasted and re-tasted...but that often results in me indulging a little too much. I would rather focus on keeping my diet reasonable for the next three weeks through all of the holiday school events, shopping, wrapping, and other holiday errands.

This year I am taking the hard work out of paleo-fied treats and doing what I did last year: organizing a "drive-thru" "paleo-ish" cookie exchange with friends at my CrossFit box. I thought I'd blog a bit about how we organize this event so that if you desired, you could create your own version.

Here's the short version of how to sketch out your cookie exchange invite:

  1. Who are your bakers? (In my case, mainly CrossFit friends)
  2. What are your baking parameters? Classic paleo? Primal (paleo + dairy)? Or, the loosey-goosey "paleo-ish"? Whatever they are, pick parameters that fit your group of bakers. The looser the rules, the larger your group of willing participants is likely to be. In our case, we defined "paleo-ish" as anything without wheat, soybean oil, or canola oil. Even so, almost all of our recipes qualified as primal, many as classic paleo, perhaps with the addition of sugar.
  3. What are your dropoff/pickup dates? We made our exchange "drive-thru" because it took a lot of the pressure of making room for one more holiday party off of people's minds...all they had to determine was whether they could bake cookies, drop them off, and pick them up. In our case this year, folks can drop off on Wednseday night (December 18th) through Thursday morning (December 19th), and pick up Thursday night through Friday (December 20th).
  4. How many bakers are attending? You'll need to set an early RSVP date, because the number of cookies everyone brings is determined by the total number of participants.
Get your invitation going - send it to your bakers with the baking parameters, dropoff/pickup dates, and an RSVP date.


Once your bakers have RSVP'ed, here are your next considerations:
  1. How many cookies shall each participant bring? In our exchange, we shot for about half a dozen of each kind per person. (Remember that everyone will be bringing those delicious cookies home to families, so 6 cookies of one kind is not outlandish when you consider it may mean everybody gets to try one of each kind!) It is wise to overshoot just a bit. For example, if you have 10 people exchanging, instead of having everyone bring 5 dozen, assign everybody coming to bring 6 or more dozen. This way the overall number of cookies won't plummet because of the inevitable handful of participants who are bound to drop out from illness or unforeseen circumstances.
  2. What type of cookies are they bringing? Leave a spot on your invite (in our case we use Facebook invites with posts) asking for folks to post a comment identifying what types of treats they are bringing. This is a good way to avoid ending up with 11 variations of one kind of cookie.
  3. Ask that those with illness excuse themselves from the event. You signed up to exchange cookies, not germs. Ask that all participants bow out of baking/distributing cookies if feeling under the weather (or in a house with sick folks) to minimize the spread of germs. You can also promise sick folks that some extra cookies will go into boxes brought to them so they don't miss out.
  4. Find an inexpensive source of packaging. In my case, last year, I bought very large holiday gift boxes - the kind to package shirts or jackets, for 2/$1 at the dollar store. I picked up enough boxes for the participants and simply asked that all those bringing cookies to also bring a couple of quarters to leave with their dropped off cookies. I also lined the boxes with sheets of wax paper before we distributed the cookies.
  5. Ask for elves to come help organize the goods. In our case, after the Thursday morning cookie dropoffs end, the elves (aka volunteers) show up and help distribute the cookies into assortments between boxes. You'll probably end up with more volunteers than you'd expect! Good chance for quality control - after distributing the cookies into boxes, the elves can sample the wares a little bit and enjoy some festive drinks if desired. In our case, it took less than an hour to get the cookies organized.
  6. Leave the boxes available for pickup, and go home with your own box and enjoy those cookies!
My recipe for these sun butter buckeyes that I brought last year can be seen here.

Do you have plans for a paleo-leaning Christmas cookie exchange this year?
What are those plans looking like so far?


~




Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...